جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

SLOANE By the time I get back to my office, the fire's gone out completely and the Lycan has made himself entirely too comfortable in my chair, boots crossed at the ankle, watching the door like he knew exactly how long it would take me to deal with Roan and come back. "That was entertaining," he says. "That was not a performance for your benefit." "No," he agrees, "but it was still entertaining. You have a talent for making grown men behave like scolded children. I mean that as a compliment, in case the delivery didn't make it obvious." "It didn't." I move past him to rebuild the fire myself rather than call for someone at this hour, and I can feel him watching the whole process with an attention that has nothing to do with the fire at all. "You could have made that easier. Instead you provoked him." "He provoked himself. I simply declined to make it comfortable for him." A pause, and when he speaks again there's a thread of genuine humor woven through it. "Also, I'll admit, I

“The Lycan called it a key. A door.” “Both those words are true, in their own way.” Nora’s jaw tightened, her fingers unconsciously curling against the tabletop. “It needs an Unbound powerful enough, and willing enough, to break what’s holding it. Ancient magic always demands a price, Sloane. The older the prison, the greater the sacrifice required to undo it.” She drew in a slow breath before continuing. “Whatever lies beneath those seals is patient. It has survived kingdoms rising and falling, Alphas killing one another for crowns, entire bloodlines disappearing into history. It doesn’t measure time the way we do. Decades mean nothing to it. Centuries are little more than seasons. It simply waits. Watches. Learns.” Her eyes found mine again, frighteningly steady. “It doesn’t rush to kill the Unbound it finds, not the powerful ones. Those are far too valuable to waste. Instead, it studies them. Tests them. Weakens the world around them piece by piece until they begin breaking under

SLOANE By nightfall, the heat is worse. It settles low in my stomach like a living thing and spreads outward in slow, relentless waves until my own skin feels foreign, as though I’m wearing someone else’s body instead of my own. I press the heel of my hand against the ache, willing it to quiet, willing myself to breathe through it the way I always have, but it doesn’t help. It never has. Two years of enduring heats alone should have taught me that by now, yet every single time I catch myself doing the exact same thing, clinging stubbornly to the ridiculous hope that maybe this time my body will finally listen. It never does. The report spread across my desk blurs beneath my eyes until the words become meaningless shapes on paper. I read the same paragraph once, then again, then twice more after that, and by the fourth attempt I still couldn’t tell anyone what it actually said. Every sentence slips through my mind before it has the chance to settle, drowned beneath the relentless

He says my name differently from everyone else, without possession, without familiarity he hasn’t earned, simply as though he is acknowledging me. “Would you walk with me?” Roan’s eyes shift immediately toward him. I notice it. So does Thane. “Why?” I ask, pretending I haven’t. “Because you’ve been sitting in this room for three hours listening to men argue about what should happen to your territory, and I suspect you’d like five minutes where nobody is asking you for anything.” His gaze flicks briefly toward Roan before returning to me. “Unless your Alpha has another objection.” The words are polite. The challenge underneath them isn’t. Roan’s expression hardens. “She’s capable of deciding for herself.” Thane’s mouth curves slightly. “I thought so.” We leave the chamber together, and I become painfully aware of how easy it is to walk beside Thane. He doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t crowd me. Doesn’t ask about Roan. Doesn’t ask whether I’m still in love with him, whether the bo

ROANI stare into the darkness beyond the training grounds, and something inside my chest twists painfully because he is right. Thane doesn’t need to steal Sloane from me. He doesn’t need to manipulate the bond or challenge me for her or force some ancient claim between them. He only has to keep being exactly who he is: patient, respectful, powerful without needing to humiliate anyone to prove it. Sloane only has to realize that she can choose a man who makes her feel safe instead of a man who once made her feel worthless. The thought makes my stomach turn, but underneath the jealousy is something worse: understanding. If she chooses Thane, I won’t have the right to call it betrayal. I rejected her first. I taught her that love could be discarded when it became inconvenient, and I cannot suddenly demand that she forget the lesson simply because I finally understand what I threw away.I sit on the edge of the training platform and drag both hands over my face, breathing slowly as the t